I Love Malcolm X

I love Malcolm X for many reasons, more than I have time to write. But I found two quotes from the book Soul on Ice that well articulate my feelings.

"It was not the Black Muslim movement itself that was so irresistibly appealing to believers. It was the awakening into self-consciousness of twenty million Negroes that was so compelling. Malcolm X articulated their aspirations better than any other man of our time. When he spoke under the banner of Elijah Muhammad he was irresistible. When he spoke under his own banner he was still irresistible. If he had become a Quaker, a Catholic, or a Seventh-Day Adventist, and if he had continued to give voice to the mute ambitions in the black man's soul, his message would still have been triumphant: because what was great was not Malcolm X but the truth he uttered."

Quoting Ossie Davis:
"If you knew him you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves...However much we may have differed with him - or with each other about him and his value as a man, let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man - but a seed - which, after the winter of our discontent will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is - a Prince - our own black shining Prince! - Who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so."

Amen.